Botetourt’s 250th anniversary Facts: The Swinging Bridge in Buchanan

For this week’s 25Oth Anniversary, we welcome back the foot traffic on the Buchanan Swinging Bridge.

The Swinging  Bridge is 366 feet long, 57.5 feet tall and the only one of its type to cross the James River.

Portions of the stone pillars were constructed in 1851. At one time it was a covered bridge.

General McCausland burned the first version of the bridge in attempt to keep Union General Hunter and his troops from advancing on Buchanan and heading to Lynchburg during Hunter’s Raid in 1864. It was not successful and Hunter advanced.

It was rebuilt after the War, but in 1877 it was washed away by a flood!

In 1937, the concrete bridge over the James River began construction. The Swinging Bridge was left to be a way for citizens across the river in what is known as Pattonsburg, to travel by foot in and out of Buchanan.

VDOT owns the bridge, but it is a popular tourist site and is on the National Historic Register. A nice information board details the various years of the bridge in the little Swinging Bridge Park East of Twin Rivers Outfitters. Drop by the park and read before you walk the bridge.

You can see some large fish from up there on the Swinging Bridge from time to time and an occasional a surprise like a tire or once we saw some clothes on a broken clothes line!

Enjoy a trip to Buchanan’s iconic Swinging Bridge!

–Cathy Benson, The Botetourt Bee, Photo by Cathy Benson on Sept. 28